The Philistine: The Very Best Of London Culture This August
By Something CuratedSomething Curated highlights the unmissable arts and culture happenings taking place across London this August, from the Sarabande Foundation’s annual group show to Berlin based South Korean DJ Peggy Gou’s one-off London party with Virgil Abloh, via a talk on kleptomania in feminist art and writing at the Freud Museum.
Exhibitions
Sarabande Group Show 2019, at Sarabande Foundation || Elena-Andreea Teleaga, Rosa Johan Uddoh, Joshua Beaty, David Abrahams, Emma Witter & More (8–25 Aug 2019)
The Sarabande Foundation’s annual group showcase of exceptional talent is approaching; this edited collective demonstrates Sarabande’s mission to support an expansive range of disciplines. This diverse exhibition will include a variety of film, photography, paintings, sculpture, and performance art. This year’s exhibition will showcase work by Elena-Andreea Teleaga, Rosa Johan Uddoh, Joshua Beaty, David Abrahams, Emma Witter, Grzegorz Stefański, Camilla Hanney and Jonah Pontzer.
Water for Dogs, at Sadie Coles HQ || Borna Sammak (Until 10 Aug 2019)
Hailing from Philadelphia, Borna Sammak obtained a BFA from New York University. Sammak frequently samples from the urban fabric of his everyday surroundings and from the realms of film, television, YouTube and digital advertising. His installations, videos and wall-pieces embed and encrypt the material of daily life, splitting and recombining mundane objects and texts, signs, slogans, clothes or cartoons – into compressed metaphors and dense patterns.
Flying Bye, at Camden Arts Centre || Elizabeth Murray (Until 15 Sep 2019)
This is the first UK exhibition of celebrated American painter Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007). The exhibition highlights a dramatic decade that saw Murray’s work dominate the art scene of 1980s New York. Her innovative paintings paved the way for a revival of the medium that included Julian Schnabel, David Salle and Anselm Kiefer. This landmark exhibition will focus on her vibrant, monumental, multi-panel and three-dimensional paintings and innovative works on paper from the 1980s and early 1990s.
New Order: Art, Product, Image 1976 – 1995, at Sprüth Magers || Angus Fairhurst, Richard Hamilton, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Olivier Richon, Peter Saville, Gillian Wearing & More (Until 14 Sep 2019)
Sprüth Magers presents New Order: Art, Product, Image 1976 – 1995, a group exhibition selected by Michael Bracewell that surveys identity and image in British art, culture and society between 1976 and 1995. The exhibition originates from a discussion about the cultural status and art historical positioning of one of Peter Saville’s best-known works for Factory Records made in the early 1980s and blurring the boundaries between art, design, pop and product.
ZORRO, at Pilar Corrias || Mary Ramsden (Until 9 Aug 2019)
Mary Ramsden’s paintings are composed of elementary but indefinable shapes, marks, fields of colour and material. They appear so stripped back, so apparently lacking in artifice, coruscating brushwork and elaborate composition that it would be easy for a casual viewer to dismiss them. However, a closer look reveals that they are arrived at by a series of laborious experiments, of thinking and rethinking during the process of painting.
Film & Performance
The Chambermaid, at ICA || Lila Avilés (1–8 Aug 2019)
Set in a luxury high-rise hotel in Mexico City, Lila Avilés’ quietly compelling directorial debut follows the routinised existence of Eve, an enterprising young hotel worker. With nuanced direction and a spare script bolstered by Gabriela Cartol’s breakthrough performance, The Chambermaid offers wry observations about class, privilege and exploitation as it sensitively depicts Eve’s day-to-day life.
The Pleasure Gardens, at Finsbury Park || Peggy Gou, HAAi, Virgil Abloh, Carista & More (18 Aug 2019)
Peggy Gou, one of dance music’s undoubted tastemakers, touches down in London to curate her own one-off party. Taking place on a beautiful tree lined carriageway within Finsbury Park, Peggy has invited a line-up of artists and friends that best represent her cultural vision to come together in an unmissable multi-layered event. The party includes sets from HAAi, Virgil Abloh, Carista and more.
Events
Les Ballotages Fétides: A Workshop With Nils Alix-Tabeling, at Jupiter Woods || Nils Alix-Tabeling (3 Aug 2019)
Jupiter Woods hosts a poultice making workshop and conversation led by artist Nils Alix-Tabeling. The workshop is part of the collaborative research project Florilege, with Rebecca Jagoe and curator Carolina Ongaro, which proposes occasions of study and practice for thinking about alternative body knowledges in the realms of medicine and herbalism.
Stealing Desire. A Kleptomaniac Reading by Alice Butler, at Freud Museum || Alice Butler (3 Aug 2019)
Defined by the compulsive urge to steal often-useless things, kleptomania was first medicalised as a condition in the nineteenth century and was often gendered as a ‘feminine’ disease, much like hysteria. To celebrate the end of her residency with the Freud Museum, Alice Butler will perform a series of readings that look to reimagine the figure of the kleptomaniac in feminist art and writing.
Feature image: Borna Sammak, Water for Dogs, at Sadie Coles HQ (via Sadie Coles HQ )